An injury free beginning to the year

Post-Hogmanay tiredness was very apparent on waking up this morning. But with some essay writing to do for my post grad degree (MA in Legislative Studies) I figured it was best to get the run out of the way early. The three essay titles, if anyone's interested, are:

1. "Critically assess the utility of Robert Packenham's work on the functions of legislatures. What, if anything, is missing?
2. What would you do with Standing Committees in the House of Commons - and why?
3. What distinguishes a well established legislature from a newly democratic one?

All to be no more than 3,000 words in length and all to be submitted no later than 9 January. I've broken the back of the first two and just need to grind out a first draft of number three. These are my first essays since graduating over seven years ago, so while it would be nice to attain high marks I think I will happily settle for a solid pass.

I did the 4.5m route following the road in front of Arthur's Seat (and back via the Pleasance gym etc) again. Time today was just short of 39 minutes. I wouldn't call it an easy run, or a steady run, but somewhere inbetween. I could definitely still feel the festive alcohol in my legs when running up the hill in front of Arthur's Seat.

If I make good progress with the essays I think I'll spend some time putting together graphics of my training runs. I should probably give each a name as well.

I spent some time reading through other marathon blogs last night and found a few which were quite interesting. I'll start collecting links to the best ones I find on my own. Its interesting to see such a wide variety of people aiming for widely differing times.